Maria Blevins

Maria Blevins Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of communication at Utah Valley University. Her research focuses on conflict and organizational and environmental communication. Before becoming an academic, she was a whitewater rafting guide for twelve years. Her current research focuses on sexual harassment in the whitewater rafting industry. She is a founding member of A-DASH, an anti-discrimination organization for river professionals. She received her BS in Outdoor Recreation Management from the University of Maine and Machias, MA in Communication from the University of Montana, and her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. 

Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown is a Dinè activist born into "The Water Flows Together" Clan. She is committed to serve her community and bring attention to everyday and historic issues that indigenous peoples face with emphasis on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Peoples. She currently serves as Chair to MMIW+ Utah and relies heavily on her belief that learning is an ever evolving process and that spiritually can be transformative at any stage of life especially when you place that energy back into your community.  

Chloe Loveland (she/her)

Chloe is an undergraduate research student at UVU and majoring in biology. Her goal is to study marine biology in the Arctic during graduate school. She is interested in marine mammal behavior and physiology as well as biological oceanography, particularly as it relates to climate-ice interaction. Science education and communication are important topics to her, and she would like to do more work to support those who educate others on the intersectionality between climate and Indigenous peoples and the effects of the climate crisis on Native and Indigenous communities.

Sara Porterfield

Sara Porterfield is the Water Policy Associate for Trout Unlimited’s (TU) Western Water & Habitat Program. Sara’s love of the Colorado River began during family road trips across the West. After college, she worked for the Colorado Outward Bound School where she has guided trips since 2005. After graduating from CU Boulder with a PhD in History, Sara founded Tributaries Consulting in 2018 to bring historical perspectives to the Western water community through research, writing, education, and public outreach. She started with TU in 2019, where she connects federal policies and programs with on-the-ground projects and with TU’s Colorado River Basin staff on the big issues facing the river today. 

Julie Ramos

Julie Ramos has worked for Latter-day Saint Charities—the Humanitarian arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—since 2017, managing the Food Security and Clean Water portfolios. Prior to joining LDS Charities, she worked as the Grants Manager at United Way of Salt Lake and spent 5 years working in Washington DC for Ashoka, an organization that finds and supports social entrepreneurs throughout the world. Julie holds a Masters in Public Administration from Brigham Young University with an emphasis in nonprofit management. 

Melissa Stamp

Melissa Stamp works as a project coordinator for the Utah Reclamation Mitigation & Conservation Commission and serves as the lead coordinator for the Provo River Delta Restoration Project. Prior to joining the Commission in 2015, she worked as an Education Assistant at Red Butte Garden and spent 12 years as an environmental consultant on various water resource projects in Utah and other western states. She holds an M.S. in Watershed Science from Utah State University and a B.A. in Geography. 

Aarushi Verma (she/her)

Aarushi founded a campaign alongside Sierra Club to commit Granite School District to 100% clean energy by 2030. She also serves as a speaker for Wasteless Solutions, a food waste diversion nonprofit, and is currently working on creating a youth guidebook to waste diversion education. In 2019, she represented the organization at the 68th UN Civil Society Conference and won the Rainforest Alliance Follow-the-Frog Giveaway for her food waste prevention advocacy. Aarushi also serves as a coordinator of the Salt Lake City Sunrise Movement Hub, where she works to elect Green New Deal champions to government.

Muskan Walia (she/her)

Muskan (Moose-Con) is a second-year student at the University of Utah Honors College, studying math and philosophy. In June 2020, Muskan launched a campaign with the Sierra Club Utah Chapter to commit Davis School District to a 100% clean electricity transition by 2030, and in all energy sectors by 2040. Muskan is a leader and mentor at U-YES, Utah Youth Environmental Solutions Network, where she supports the development of a new youth-based climate curriculum aimed at providing educational resources, mentorship, and organizing tools to young people in Utah to advance climate justice.

Weihong Wang

Dr. Weihong Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Science at Utah Valley University. She graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina in 2008. Her research interests include anthropogenic impact on wetland ecosystems, GIS and Remote Sensing applications, and Energy Use and Sustainability. Her current research is focusing on nutrient loading to Utah Lake and land use land cover classification within the Utah Lake Watershed using GIS-remote sensing techniques.

This event is sponsored in partnership with UVU's College of Science.

The symposium series is named in honor and memory of David R. Keller, who served as director of
the Center for the Study of Ethics from 1999-2013. Among his many virtues, David was a champion
for environmental stewardship and sustainability.